{"id":2502,"date":"2009-05-08T21:53:52","date_gmt":"2009-05-09T04:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/?p=2502"},"modified":"2009-05-08T21:53:52","modified_gmt":"2009-05-09T04:53:52","slug":"music-words-transformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2009\/05\/08\/music-words-transformation\/","title":{"rendered":"music + words = transformation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"karina-gauvin1_cmichael-slobodian\"<\/a>
\nThis week’s soprano soloist, Karina Gauvin.
\nPhoto credit: Michael Slobodian<\/em><\/p>\n

Two of the three works that we’re performing on this weekend’s classical subscription concerts feature the juxtaposition of words and music.\u00c2\u00a0 And they couldn’t be more different.<\/p>\n

The first work is Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s one of my favorite pieces of all time, and never fails to move me at some deep level, beneath my understanding.\u00c2\u00a0 As we were rehearsing the Barber Thursday afternoon, Carlos [Kalmar] said “This is such<\/em> an American piece.\u00c2\u00a0 It just gets to the heart of it.”\u00c2\u00a0 And I replied, “Yes, and it’s just such a timeless<\/em> piece — when I listen to it, time seems to stand still, I don’t know whether 10 minutes or an hour has passed.”\u00c2\u00a0 I think the most powerful aspect of this piece is the incredible language (from a short prose poem of James Agee, later adapted as the introduction to his autobiographical novel A Death in the Family<\/em>) which captures so vividly the sensations of the gloaming of a sleepy southern neighborhood:<\/p>\n

It has become the time of evening when people sit on their porches,
\nrocking gently and talking gently and watching the street
\nand the standing up into their sphere of possession of the trees,
\nof birds’ hung havens, hangers.
\nPeople go by; things go by.
\nA horse, drawing a buggy, breaking his hollow iron music on the asphalt;
\na loud auto; a quiet auto;
\npeople in pairs, not in a hurry,
\nscuffling, switching their weight of aestival body, talking casually,
\nthe taste hovering over them of vanilla, strawberry, pasteboard and starched milk,
\nthe image upon them of lovers and horsemen, squared with clowns in hueless amber.<\/p>\n

A streetcar raising its iron moan:
\nstopping, belling and starting; stertorous; rousing and raising again its iron increasing moan
\nand swimming its gold windows and straw seats on past and past and past,
\nthe bleak spark crackling and cursing above it like a small malignant spirit set to dog its tracks;
\nthe iron whine rises on rising speed;
\nstill risen, faints; halts; the faint stinging bell;
\nrises again, still fainter, fainter, lifting, lifts, faints forgone: forgotten.
\nNow is the night one blue dew.<\/p>\n

Now is the night one blue dew,
\nmy father has drained,
\nnow he has coiled the hose.
\nLow on the length of lawns,
\na frailing of fire who breathes …
\nParents on porches: rock and rock.
\nFrom damp strings morning glories hang their ancient faces.
\nThe dry and exalted noise of the locusts from all the air at once enchants my eardrums.<\/p>\n

On the rough wet grass of the backyard my father and mother have spread quilts.
\nWe all lie there, my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt, and I too am lying there …
\nThey are not talking much, and the talk is quiet,
\nof nothing in particular, of nothing at all in particular, of nothing at all.
\nThe stars are wide and alive, they seem each like a smile of great sweetness, and they seem very near.<\/p>\n

All my people are larger bodies than mine, …
\nwith voices gentle and meaningless like the voice of sleeping birds.
\nOne is an artist, he is living at home.
\nOne is a musician, she is living at home.
\nOne is my mother who is good to me.
\nOne is my father who is good to me.
\nBy some chance, here they are, all on this earth;
\nand who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth,
\nlying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the sounds of the night.
\nMay God bless my people, my uncle, my aunt, my mother, my good father,
\noh, remember them kindly in their time of trouble;
\nand in the hour of their taking away.<\/p>\n

After a little I am taken in and put to be.
\nSleep, soft smiling, draws me unto her:
\nand those receive me, who quietly treat me,
\nas one familiar and well-beloved in that home:
\nbut will not, no ,will not, not now, not ever;
\nbut will not ever tell me who I am.<\/p>\n

Barber so masterfully sets both the physical setting of the text as well as making the actual language work well in the context of being sung.<\/p>\n

The other work on the program with both text and music is Mahler’s Fourth Symphony.\u00c2\u00a0 The last movement is truly an orchestral lieder, it easily be the centerpiece of one of his major orchestral song cycles, and it’s a fitting end to a jewel of a symphony, with perhaps only the misfortune to fall between two epic symphonies: the sprawling Third, and the powerful and majestic Fifth.\n<\/p>\n

Heaven’s Life (from Des Knaben Wunderhorn)<\/p>\n

We enjoy heavenly pleasures
\nand therefore avoid earthly ones.
\nNo worldly tumult
\nis to be heard in heaven.
\nAll live in greatest peace.
\nWe lead angelic lives,
\nyet have a merry time of it besides.
\nWe dance and we spring,
\nWe skip and we sing.
\nSaint Peter in heaven looks on.<\/p>\n

John lets the lambkin out,
\nand Herod the Butcher lies in wait for it.
\nWe lead a patient,
\nan innocent, patient,
\ndear little lamb to its death.
\nSaint Luke slaughters the ox
\nwithout any thought or concern.
\nWine doesn’t cost a penny
\nin the heavenly cellars;
\nThe angels bake the bread.<\/p>\n

Good greens of every sort
\ngrow in the heavenly vegetable patch,
\ngood asparagus, string beans,
\nand whatever we want.
\nWhole dishfuls are set for us!
\nGood apples, good pears and good grapes,
\nand gardeners who allow everything!
\nIf you want roebuck or hare,
\non the public streets
\nthey come running right up.
\nShould a feast day come along,
\nall the fishes at once come swimming with joy.
\nThere goes Saint Peter running
\nwith his net and his bait
\nto the heavenly pond.
\nSaint Martha must be the cook.<\/p>\n

There is just no music on earth
\nthat can compare to ours.
\nEven the eleven thousand virgins
\nventure to dance,
\nand Saint Ursula herself has to laugh.
\nThere is just no music on earth
\nthat can compare to ours.
\nCecelia and all her relations
\nmake excellent court musicians.
\nThe angelic voices
\ngladden our senses,
\nso that all awaken for joy.<\/p>\n

The interesting bit of programming magic for this concert is that the vocalist in both works on the program seems to be a youthful figure.\u00c2\u00a0 In the Barber, the protagonist is a young child lazing with their family on a warm summer’s evening.\u00c2\u00a0 In the Mahler, it is a cherubic angel, singing of the joys of heavenly existence.\u00c2\u00a0 In both, the outlook is wistful yet joyful — a quiet celebration of simple (Barber) or celestial (Mahler) pleasures.<\/p>\n

Tickets available here<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week’s soprano soloist, Karina Gauvin. Photo credit: Michael Slobodian Two of the three works that we’re performing on this weekend’s classical subscription concerts feature the juxtaposition of words and music.\u00c2\u00a0 And they couldn’t be more different. The first work is Samuel Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s one of my favorite pieces of all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[148,115,2,1583],"tags":[169,3669],"class_list":["post-2502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appreciations","category-music","category-the-orchestra-world","category-vocal-music","tag-mahler","tag-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8kC-Em","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7991,"url":"https:\/\/www.nobleviola.com\/wordpress\/2012\/10\/29\/coming-soon-50000-words\/","url_meta":{"origin":2502,"position":0},"title":"coming soon – 50,000 words","author":"Charles Noble","date":"October 29, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes, 50,000 words in the month of November. 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